As a Florida business owner, you want to offer the best products and services to your customers and clients. Your primary goal, however, is to make a profit. After all, you can’t remain in business if you don’t have sufficient resources to do so. Financial budgeting and forecasting can help you achieve your goals, but it can be a complicated and daunting process. You likely will wish to consider consulting with an experienced Orlando financial planner, such as KDK Accountancy Corporation.
What is a Business Budget?
Your business budget is your estimate of what your company can expect in the way of revenue and expenses in a relatively short period of time, usually a year. It includes such things as the following:
- Projected sales trends
- Projected cost trends
- Projected amount of debt you will add or reduce
- Projected cash flow
- Projected economic outlook of your industry, sector or market
Your financial planner in Orlando can help you determine what data to collect and how to collect it. Stated another way, your business budget estimates the amount of money you have to spend and the ways in which you plan to spend it so as to not only achieve your desired sales and revenue targets, but also your overall goals.
What is a Business Forecast?
While your business budget acts as your financial map of where you want your business to go, your business forecast looks at what, in fact, is more likely to happen operationally. Consequently, you often need to forecast more frequently, possibly every month, than you need to budget. On the other hand, a comprehensive long-range business forecast can help you plan ahead for as many as five years, thereby giving you a competitive edge.
Forecasting works off the data contained in your budget. However, if yours is a new business with little available primary data, you can use secondary data, such as the following:
- Government reports and publications
- Competitors’ annual reports
- Trade journals specific to your industry, sector or market.
Budgeting and Forecasting Importance
Just as you wouldn’t take off on a long road trip without a map to guide you to your destination, neither is it wise to attempt to run your business without the necessary budgets and forecasts your trusted Orlando financial planner can help you construct.
Bottom Line
The critical importance of successful business budgeting and forecasting cannot be overstated. Bottom line, it can provide you with the following benefits:
- Let you predict potential issues
- Let you and your staff make better business decisions
- Let you measure those decisions’ impact
- Let you develop the best strategies to meet future events and trends
- Let you gain a competitive edge over your business rivals
- Let you improve your company’s bottom financial line
Contact KDK Accountancy Corporation at (407) 759-5363 today. We are a full-service, award-winning accounting firm that has been helping Florida business owners for more than 25 years. We are fully prepared to be your trusted Orlando financial planner of choice.
